Wireless communication requires a transmitter, a receiver and a communication channel. Wireless communication beyond line-of-sight (LOS) is generally not possible over either land or sea. Over land, the communication link can be extended by repeaters and landline connections to increase the range for trans-horizon distances. Over the sea or the ocean or any large bodies of water (such as large lakes), however, such infrastructure is nonexistent due to difficulty of installations in the water. While line-of-sight based wireless communication using microwave radio can be established over the ocean, prohibitively high cost infrastructure is required in the middle of the ocean for extending trans-horizon wireless communication.
Satellite communication can facilitate such communication, however, over the sea, there are serious limitations such as high cost, data rate and traffic limitations and availability.
Recently, tropospheric-based trans-horizon wireless communication has been proposed using the evaporation duct. Some previous experiments and research in this area show promising results. However, such systems have been unable to show establishment of neither a reliable communication link nor a high data rate throughput which can match a satellite or a LOS microwave-based broadband link.
Thus, what is needed is a method and systems for trans-horizon wireless communication using the tropospheric evaporation duct which at least partially overcomes the drawbacks of present approaches and provides a communication link with very low outages and very high data rate throughput. If reliability and capacity available of such system can match the existing LOS technologies, then it can be used as an alternate wireless communication link requiring remarkably less infrastructure within the sea or the ocean. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the disclosure.